:: netwoman's blog ::

The power of the media - will bloggers respond?

Kaye told me that she was watching television last night, and there was a lot of media coverage of women committing more crimes. Being the good researcher that she is, she Googled it, and promptly emailed me.

Why am I blogging about this? Well, this seems to be a good example of the power of media (and the media interplay as kaye went from TV to internet to email to IM) and also about how the media (television, newspaper and the internet) can shape how we think about and perceive the social world.

I checked one of the articles and have some comments (of course) because I think that the media can create a problematic perceptions (and incomplete stories) - in this instance - of women and crime.

-the article notes that crime rates have not gone up, but more women are arrested: this doesn't mean that women are committing more crimes, it means they are getting arrested more. We need to investigate why this may be this case.
-The article notes that women are on par (in terms of equality) with men because they are in the workforce more, yet forcible rapes are 4.7% higher - this does not jive. Rape is about power, and if women and men were indeed 'on par', than rape rates would drop.
-the crimes that women and men commit are gendered; men = violent offenses, murder, robbery, whereas women = embezzlement, forgery and counterfeiting, drug abuse, vagrancy and liquor law violations. No account is taken in the media articles of why this may be the case.
-Arrests of women for aggravated assault climbed nearly 25% over the decade. This does not take into account several things. First, changes in criminal acts that force police officers to charge both women and men in domestic assaults. Second, that more women are physically retaliating (see literature concerning the Battered Women's Syndrome) to domestic violence. Also, that given the backlash (outcome = women who 'batter'), more men are reporting 'the flying frypan' incidences.

My hope is the blogosphere will respond to these media accounts in way that reflects a social analysis of what is really going on. Statistics can be misleading if they are not discussed within the context of the occurrences. Hopefully blogging will fill some of these gaps.

posted by Netwoman @ 10:37 AM